


Dangerous Feelings

by hekxate



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 4x04 Dangerous Dealings, F/M, Fluff, Minor Angst, Romance, Vaxleth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 08:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hekxate/pseuds/hekxate
Summary: After the fade-to-black on Vax and Keyleth in 4x04 Dangerous Dealings.They're not quite there yet, but they're... somewhere. Sometimes, good things take time. (As tempting as steamy passionate in-denial-of-feelings sex was, I'm a sucker for heart-achey romance.)





	Dangerous Feelings

_“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”_

_“I haven’t wanted to be alone most nights.”_

When Keyleth opens her door to let Vax in, it is only just enough to let him pass. The message is clear: this— a stepping over the carefully constructed boundaries they’ve established— is only for tonight. Vax turns slightly as he slips through, brushing ever-so-gently (and ever-so-purposefully) against the arm hung at her side. As she closes the door, he continues directly to her bed and sits. His response is understood: it is enough.

There is a soft silence as Keyleth clicks the door shut. She waits a moment, facing away from him with one palm resting against the wood. It is so rarely in recent days that he has sought out her company that Keyleth is almost unsure what to do. It feels as though one movement too swift or one word too bold would send him skittering away into the night again, out of her sight and out of her reach.

Vax’ildan is a strange creature— for all his bravado and charm, he lives encased in a shell that seems six feet thick. It was less so before Whitestone, Keyleth realized in the days following their encounter with the Briarwoods. As they’d adventured together, travelled together, and fought together, she’d earned his trust, and Vax had slowly inched out of his shell. A close brush with death had done away with it all together, and amongst bruised and bloodied bodies, he had kissed her. Bared his heart, even. It was not the grandest declaration of love Keyleth had ever heard (in fact, Scanlan offered more gracious words to any woman who’d spare him the time), but it was by far the most sincere.

In the aftermath, she’d turned him down, asking for space and time to think. He respected her wishes, but in an instant withdrew back into the shell he’d once shed.

She only regretted it when he refused to meet her eyes.

Lately, that was often, and more recently, he’d taken to avoiding her altogether. But tonight, he was here. She would let herself have this, just this once.

Vax sits on her bed patiently, staring not at the wall, but through it. He’s only slightly slouched, and his hands hold onto the edge of her mattress in a white-knuckled grip. Turning now to look at him, Keyleth can admire his profile in more than a fleeting glance. His long dark hair is tied hastily out of the way, and though the heaviest pieces of his leather armour are absent, the moonlight still catches on the hilts of his sheathed daggers. Dressed down and ready to rest, but never wholly unprepared for battle, Vax is the same as he ever was.

Keyleth clenches and unclenches her hands; across the room and blocked by his shirt she can still feel the flesh of his back searing and scarring under her hands, a new brand in place of old. A certain representation of an uncertain thing.

But was her love uncertain any longer?

Keyleth moves gently across the room and sits next to him. She doesn’t look at his face, but instead keeps her gaze trained downwards as she takes the hand that had braded him and rests it reassuringly against one of his own. A moment passes before his grip relaxes and she weaves their fingers together just as he’d intended under the sun tree. Their gazes shift towards one another at the same time. Here, she sees a change: Vax is scared.

When they first met, Keyleth would likely have told anyone who asked that Vax had never been scared in his life. He’s a daredevil, a rogue, a man sustained on the thrill of changing tides. But here, in the privacy of her bedroom, drowning in moonlight, it’s clear as day. Vax is terrified of losing the things he loves.

She’s sure the same things echo in her eyes and in her heart. She knows that Vax is scared to lose his sister, his only real family left, and Vox Machina, the family they’d found. Just like her, he had just lost what semblance of a home they had in all this chaos: Emon. Lastly (and most selfishly) she knows he is scared of losing her— a love not yet bloomed, but still so achingly present in their day-to-day— and cherishes it. To be loved is a remarkable thing, and even if they cannot lay together each night, she hopes the fear of loss echoing back at him is enough to let him know she feels the same.

His eyes flicker between hers then, briefly, and she knows he’s thinking. She means to soothe him, to ease him out of whatever dark spiral he is surely headed down, but before she can get a word out about it he deftly closes the gap between them and kisses her. The second time sends warm sparks through her just like the first.

The kiss lasts several long, sweet seconds, and even when their lips part, their faces remain close. Seconds pass before Keyleth’s eyes slide open and she makes contact with his half-lidded eyes again.

It’s a wonderful, beautiful feeling, immediately followed by that familiar crawling fear. She knows then that no matter how badly she wants it, wants _him_ ¸ she’s not ready.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Vax gives a minute shake of his head.

“Anything you give is far more than I could deserve.”

“That’s not right!” Keyleth cries, voice still low. She feels herself begin to shake. _She wants this_.  “It can’t be. We’re surrounded by so much chaos and… and destruction, and death, Vax, it could be one of us!” Her voice cracks slightly with emotion as she continues. “It could be you, or- or me, or anyone, and I’ve left you hanging with only a few words to go on? All you ask is my love and I’m not even willing—”

“A heart is a lot to give,” Vax interjects. “Even the memory of your hand in mine would be enough to sustain me the rest of my days so long as I could be near you.”

Keyleth’s heart, hardened by guilt and worry, softens then, and he raises the hand not clasped in hers to brush his knuckles along her cheek. It’s a gesture soft enough to make her ache.

“All I ask for tonight is reassurance. Reassurance that there is goodness and love and comfort left— that’s what you are, Kiki. To me, every time I see you, all I see is good. And I need that. Just for tonight.”

She nods and ignores the tears pricking at her eyes. Shifting down the mattress slightly, she ducks her head to tuck under his chin and rest against his chest. As her free hand comes to rest on his thigh, he moves the hand brushing her face up to sweep through her hair in soft, soothing motions.

“I hope that I…” Vax swallows thickly. “I hope that I can offer a semblance of the same to you.”

“Of course.”

“That, and if a dragon comes crashing through the window, at least there’s two of us.”

A watery laugh escapes Keyleth and she presses closer into his hold. She tightens her grip on his hand, and he returns it just as hard. Silent in the darkened halls of Greyskull Keep, they both understand. She can’t give him everything she wishes to. She can’t give it all away yet. But this…

It’s something. For now, it’s enough.


End file.
